


you and i, divorced but not devout (every night my teeth are falling out)

by cashtastrophe



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Child Abuse, Clint Barton Feels, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Clint Barton-centric, Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Deaf Clint Barton, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-09 21:08:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4364204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashtastrophe/pseuds/cashtastrophe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barton chooses literally the <i>worst</i> possible place to have his breakdown.  </p><p>(In which Tony is on-call for Avengers-related PR disasters, and Clint is an actual walking human one.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one bad night, i'll hold the glass until the glass can hold me down

**Author's Note:**

> while i really, really like jeremy renner as hawkeye (except i am not here for secret!farm!family!) matt fraction's trash baby scuzzy alcoholic youngish hawkeye has my heart forever and ever amen. 
> 
> the universe is an attempt to mash the films with the goings-on of the hawkeye comics, but you do not necessarily need to read the comics for it to make sense, as long as you're vaguely aware of kate bishop and that clint is a depressed, drunk mess who dresses like a thirty something dad that still skateboards
> 
> although you should read those comics because man are they a+.
> 
> anyways, here's some more blatant angst bdsm with a forecast of daddy issues--but like, that shouldn't even be a surprise at this point probably?
> 
> this fic has no redeeming value whatsoever. written and set during the (super goddamn long) hiatus between hawkeye 21 and hawkeye 22 but again, no real context from the comics necessary.
> 
> unbeta'd as always, and english is not my first language, so feedback is very much appreciated--if my mistakes bug you, they'd probably bug me too

“To be fair,” Barton slurs, his pupils blown wide despite the bright overhead lights, his teeth white, vicious and sharp, bared in a whip-thin blade of a smile, “this is not actually the worst place I’ve ever turned up.”

 

*

 

Tony can admit he has a valid point there. _That_ particular trophy still goes to six months back in Madripoor where Tony (in an entirely magnanimous and selfless gesture, which no one has quite remembered to thank him for) had attempted to take his newfound team on a vacation. ‘Team bonding,’ Cap had called it.

(And so, okay, maybe he did it for that, a little, because Steve smiles easy, but it never seems as easy as when he's got his team around him and no one is actively trying to kill them. And alright, maybe Tony has had a teeny tiny little crush on him since he was, like, nine, but that's neither here nor there.

(In his defense, it's a _really_ nice smile.)

‘A giant mistake. Seriously, the hugest fucking mistake, we can _never go on vacation again_ ,’ Bruce had called it two days in, and seriously—how was Tony supposed to know Barton had a gambling thing? Who even had a gambling thing anymore, okay, it’s _two thousand fourteen_ and he’d expect the archer to at least have the quiet dignity of the blue-collared alcoholic.   Pills, maybe?  Barton really seems to like pills. 

But no, no—their little birdie had gotten clever counting cards at the blackjack tables, and gotten a cheekbone bashed in for his trouble. And Tony had then had the particular pleasure of watching Barton slowly drowning in the shallow water of a filthy gutter while his arc reactor lay a mere three inches from his grasping fingers, popped from its casing by some quick-fingered, cat-eyed little pickpocket who’d clearly actually bothered to Google the targets she'd been hired to dispatch. 

Embarrassing. Laid out by a teenaged girl in glittery Converse and matching nail polish—a bad fucking day all around.

He fixed the casing issue months ago, of course—biometric scanner keyed only to him, his team, Rhodey and Pepper, because call him a paranoiac but he’s an _efficient_ paranoiac. He still wakes up in a cold sweat sometimes, though, with the choked, wet rattle of Barton's breath in his ears, Natasha’s venomous, “I swear to God, Clinton Francis Barton, if you die on me I will find some horrifying way to bring you back you _actual fuckwit_ , I’ll bring you back so I can kill you myself, do you hear me Hawkeye, _Hawkeye_ , come in, do you copy, _do you copy you sonuvabitch_ , don’t you _dare_ —“

And then Tony and the rest of the Avengers got an awkward front-row seat to listening to Natasha cry, quietly and furiously and as scarily as she does everything else, these low, wretched huffing noises that sounded more like a horse ready to kick than a young woman in tears. 

Tony had tried to pat her shoulder afterwards, sort of a reassuring, platonic clap because he didn't think she'd have welcomed a hug. That had been okay, apparently, until he'd made the mistake of offering her a handkerchief after. Her eyes, dry but red, had flicked up to meet his, an arctic fury crystallized around each clipped word as she bit out, "What is that, Tony."

"For, uh," Tony had flailed a little, and then pantomimed dabbing at his eyes. That was his first mistake.

"I heard you on the comm," he blurted, which was mistake number two, and because he’s a genius on paper and an idiot in actuality, followed that with, "Barton asked for you, when he was—“

That's strike three, swing and a miss. Natasha bares her very small, very perfect, very sharp-white teeth, takes iron hold of his wrist, and Tony's out.

So yeah, point to Barton. That _was_ worse. 

 

*

 

“Jesus, Barton,” Tony grumbles, and tugs sharply at the leather cuffs around the man’s wrists. Barton hisses but doesn't protest, and he most definitely does not meet Tony's eyes.  “Your fingers are blue.  Your _fingers_ are _blue_.  You're aware you actually need these to hold a bow, right, numbnuts? What the _fuck_ is this?”

Barton sags against his bonds and closes his eyes, snorting out a soft, thick laugh. “Aw, man.  That’s the question, innit.” He doesn't so much as twitch, but the way Tony's bent over the bed to free him, his dick's shoved up right against Tony’s hip, which Tony is.  Absolutely. Not. Dealing. With.  

Whatever’s got his eyes hooded like that has him rock-hard in his jeans, his chest rising and falling in an uneven staccato, mouth bitten wetly, invitingly red—clearly still goddamn aroused, despite the fact that he probably can’t feel his arms past the shoulders and his entire torso is a map of deep bruising. His back doesn't look much better when he leans down to work at his ankle cuffs with stiff fingers, except it's crossed by six massive welts, one of which wraps right around his shoulder to terminate over his collarbone. The guy doesn’t even flinch as he pulls his t-shirt back on, doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest as the cloth drags rough over swollen, tight skin. Tony doesn't know what the fuck he’s supposed to do here, so he stares determinedly at the spot over Barton's left knee where the ratty denim has worn through to skin and dusky blonde hairs.  

It's not like he's blind. He knows that Barton is attractive, the same way he registers that despite the fact that she could likely break his neck with her thighs, Natasha is lovely. He knows that in any other circumstances, he'd leer and make a shitty, tasteless joke because he is far from goddamn comfortable with this, but. But Barton is twenty-nine, and his teammate and his thigh is white above a tanned, scraped-up knee. There are going to be damning bruises at the corner of his mouth, rubbed raw where the gag strap had bitten in. His lip’s split. He doesn't seem to have noticed. He won’t look at Tony.

Well, fuck. 

“Why’d they send you?” Barton's voice is flat as it'd been back during the attack on New York, carefully neutral. Quieter than he’s used to. He didn't make so much as a sound when his arms dropped, either, didn't do anything more than wince. He rolled his shoulders afterwards like an injured animal, tested them like he was checking how quickly he might be able to bolt, if he had to. Tony doesn't doubt he'd try, but his fingers had been cool and unresponsive against Tony's as he had worked them free of the cuffs, they’d fumbled badly with the ankle restraints, so. Barton's probably grounded for a few minutes, at least. 

“Because I’ve got extensive experience with _damage control_ ,” Tony snaps. It comes out maybe a bit tighter than he’d intended, because he's been—not where Barton is, necessarily, leather and some big bearded guy in chaps is absolutely not his scene, but he'd been young and stupid about a decade longer than he had any real right to, so he's hardly got room to be all judge-y about this. 

Barton, though, he just nods easily, like it's not the first time he's been referred to as damage. Tony sighs.

Pot, kettle.

Whatever.

 

*

 

The big bearded guy's name is Bill.

He's a high-school geometry teacher, nearing retirement, with a terrible hoop earring, two kids from a previous marriage, and a really gorgeous vintage Indian parked outside. Tony doesn't take off his sunglasses the whole time they're talking in the hallway, because Tony is technically an average height, thanks, except he has the misfortune to be in a career where he's constantly surrounded by giants, so. He’s practiced in maintaining any intimidation factor he can get.

Not that he needs it with this guy. ”He didn’t—I didn't know he was busted up already, he—he never said, I _never_ would've gone at him with the whip if I knew he had f-fucked-up ribs, you know—?” Bill tries his hardest not to look Tony in the eye. "I didn't know he was _that_ Clint. I didn't know he was an Avenger. I had no idea, I swear."

Which—sure. Fair enough. Tony's actually surprised the club even let Barton in looking the way he does, all twelve-day old stubble, torn-up jeans and a dirty t-shirt, topped off with those godawful purple skate shoes. He reeks of cheap whiskey and weed even now, smells like a goddamn frat house, like someone broke a bottle over his head, and that's forgoing the taped knuckles and the butterfly bandages holding his right cheek together. What kind of place let someone in to get the shit kicked out of them, looking like _that_? He hasn’t been here in a decade, granted, but he can’t imagine Emma’d let her standards slip that low, can't imagine she'd turn a blind eye to such a high-profit client getting so out of control.

"You have to believe me, Mr. Stark, sir, I didn't mean to actually hurt him, I wouldn't have—this has never happened before. Ever. I know what I'm doing, they make us take _classes_ , I—” Bill is actually _wringing his hands_ now, Jesus fuck, literal mountain of a man hunching his shoulders and trying—failing spectacularly, by the way—to look smaller, like Tony might be about to take a swing at him. Like Tony, sans armor, would do more than just bounce off the guy's stupidly giant chest. The man's a math teacher, but despite the fact that he could probably caber-toss Tony without breaking a sweat, he is still painfully, obviously a civilian. And he sounds absolutely terrified.

"I really need this job, Mr. Stark, I got a kid about to start college in the fall, and I don't make much, and—and they’ll fire me if, if I—I mean, the screaming was bad enough, you know, he scared the living shit out of me." His head snaps up then, eyes suddenly wide and panicked and fixed on Tony. "Oh, Christ. Am I going to prison? Is this like hitting a cop?"

Tony sighs, and massages the bridge of his nose with two fingers wondering, not for the first time, how Steve always manages to be unavailable when something like this happens. _He’s_ technically team leader, not Tony, and surely he’d have something calm and reassuring to offer here. What the hell is Tony supposed to say, exactly? He’s shit at this. He’s always been shit at this, and goddamn Fury for believing otherwise. “No, of course you're not—you know what, Bill, I couldn't care less what gets your dick hard, different strokes, different folks, no pun intended. Barton's a grown man. Just, maybe when the guy's already covered in bandages, you sit that one out. Professionally speaking."

Bill blinks mournfully down at him. The guy is seriously massive, easily a head taller than Tony and twice as broad, built like a cartoon linebacker, though the slippery side of middle age—and a fondness for beer, probably, if the Indian's any indication—has softened his belly. He's put on a shirt (predictably-faded Iron Maiden graphic, cigarette-burned along the hem, damn thing's probably older than Barton) and a pair of pants that actually serve their intended function. Tony's stupidly grateful for the small things, at this point.

"He's always covered in bandages, though," Bill says slowly, like maybe he doesn't quite understand.

Tony winces. "Always. He's always—okay, how many times are we talking here, chief?"

"It's never been this bad before," the guy admits with a lift of his giant shoulder. "But my, uh, profession, Mr. Stark, I get a lot of repeat clients. Clint's been a loyal one. Very loyal. There's just...some of these guys, you know, they don't wanna talk much."

"Let me guess," Tony says, folding his arms over his chest, "He isn't one of the talkative ones."

Bill shakes his head "I try not to judge," he offers. "Some of 'em get to me in pretty bad shape already. Trying to—I dunno, take care of it themselves, I guess. Embarrassed about coming to see someone to get the itch scratched. Some of 'em," and here, he eyes the still-closed door to Hawkeye's borrowed room, as though Tony might miss the extremely subtle hint, "some of 'em just don't agree with me on when enough's enough."

And doesn't _that_ sum Clint Barton up neatly, Tony thinks with a scowl.

 

*

 

He gets Bill's number. He doesn't know exactly why. "When you get to the hospital," Bill says, as he punches it in (surprisingly deft, for a man with hands the size of Tony's entire head) and hands Tony's phone back, "let me know he's okay? I don’t—man, I got a kid his age, you know?"

That is not something Tony can process, like, at _all_ , and he’s obviously not taking Barton to a hospital because he thinks a public place is probably the last thing any of the involved parties need right now, but he smiled anyways. “Sure thing, boss. As long as we can count on you to keep this between you and us? No reporters?  _Comprende_?”

Bill nods somewhat frantically, looks a little bit pale still, but two hours later, when Tony sends _all vitals are good, just some good old fashioned r &r for our feathery friend_, Bill replies with two smiley faces and a thumbs-up.

Tony stares at the screen for a moment, and lets himself wish it was that simple.

 

*

 

Tony is completely unprepared for this.

He wasn't expecting a loyal-client kind of scenario. He'd been hoping—really hoping, _seriously_ hoping, the way he should probably know better than to try by this point—that this was just Barton's quasi-supernatural ability to attract trouble. That he was doing—something, maybe undercover, shit, Tony doesn't know, but he wasn't expecting to rescue Barton from what seems like a totally consensual (if exceedingly stupid and a far fucking cry from "safe" or "sane") visit to an S &M club. To a man old enough to be his father, which Tony is trying really, really hard to ignore.

(Because Tony is also probably old enough to be Barton's father, and just. Eurgh.)

There's a slew of jokes he would normally be making here, probably, but Tony had Jarvis pull up the security feed on the drive over. That, he’s sure, will be with him for a while. The way Barton's back had arched and twisted, the fact that Tony could tell very clearly that he was screaming, despite the lack of audio, still kind of totally makes him want to throw up.

The video is—it’s something else. It’s _horrible_. He’s seen the man take a bullet through the leg and keep running, he's watched Barton do his level best to hide the rainbow bruising he's covered in after each mission. He shows up from his days off, nursing black eyes they've never seen before. Barton lives his entirely life halfway out of a hospital bed, far as Tony can tell, and yet he has never _ever_ seen Barton lose it like he did on that tape. Not after Loki, not after—not even after Phil, now that he thinks of it, and maybe Barton's complete lack of reaction at the time should have garnered more notice from his team.

Barton's in the back of Tony's car, which is weird, right, because Tony is fairly sure he'd remembered to offer a lift to medical and then back to Bed-Stuy. In the time he'd taken to wrap up with Bill and then his subsequent conversation with Emma, a solid half hour working his way though an inch of nondisclosure agreements, Barton could have easily been through his checkup and halfway home. Could be in his shitty apartment with his shitty stray dog and his baby superhero sidekick, nursing another beer or twelve and watching the Kardashians--which, aside from the occasional scuffle with the neighborhood toughs, seems to be entirely what Barton does with his downtime.

But there he is anyways, heavy-lidded, bruised and sleepy-looking, slumped boneless up against the window like he doesn't have the strength left in him to stay awake, much less upright. He doesn't smell any better outside the context of the club—it’s actually somehow worse, now that he's back in his oversized hoodie.  

(He's got that minimalist Hawkeye shirt on underneath, the prototype he'd been sent just before the Loki incident, when he’d still been in talks with Fury about qualifying for the initiative. Just before New York. Just before the immediate cancellation of all Hawkeye merchandise, and his noticeable absence from most, if not all, Avengers promo material. 

(Tony really should look into that. Barton has been cleared for duty and active as Hawkeye for months now, and even if he wasn't, that baby superhero of his seems to have a decent fanbase of her own.

(As much as Kate makes him grind his teeth, they are _really_ goddamn fortunate that she's cute and chipper and nothing at all like her namesake in his current state. She’d done them a favor, really, since she’d showed up just about the time Barton checked out from everything except playing landlord and periodically showing up drunk for missions. 

(Okay, so he only did that once. Still. Tony doesn't trust anyone aside from himself drunk on missions, and Barton managed to get himself shot clear through the shoulder on that one.

(Point is, there’s a hole in the collar of Hawkeye's Hawkeye t-shirt, and he's got nothing to replace it with, which is seriously fucking sad.)

Tony doesn't bother to hide the fact that he's cracking his window as he settles into the empty seat across from his teammate. Barton doesn't seem particularly offended.

"Bottle of Jack. Got me in the back of the head,” he supplies helpfully, with a wave in his own general direction. "Shame," he adds, and then, "Could I get a drink?"

"Are you _actually_ insane?” Tony asks. "That's a legitimate question, by the way, and one that I think I'm entitled to have answered, as your corporate sponsor and the person who routinely supplies you with explosives."

Barton ignores him in favor of rummaging about in the armrest cabinet, eventually turning up a bottle that Tony could have sworn he'd emptied out months ago. "And hey,” he says, “if you're keeping tabs, that is an eight hundred dollar bottle of bourbon."

"Fuck you very much," Barton says amicably, lazily, and swaddles the cork in his t-shirt to pop it open. He manages somehow to not entirely cover himself with liquor, but it tugs his hoodie sleeve up just enough for Tony's gaze to snag on the deep, mottled blues and purples ringing his wrist.

 _Brings out your eyes_ , he almost says, because that's his immediate default when absolutely nothing is funny. 

 _Those_ bruises aren't a few hours old. _Those_ didn't come from Bill, those are—did he do that himself? has he been tied up recently? there hasn't been a mission in weeks, but Bill said he was a regular, didn't say _how_ fucking regular, didn't say how often he's been paying a stranger to beat him senseless when Tony personally knows of at least twelve people offhand that would happily do it for free.

(Natasha may very well be added to the list once she finds out about this. Tony is only grateful that her weird Jedi spy powers mean that she'll likely know before he even gets Barton back to the tower, so at least Tony won't have to deliver the news.)

Barton scowls and balls the fabric of both sleeves down over his palms, hunches his shoulders like a surly goddamn teenager. "Don't be a creep, Stark." He takes a long pull from the bottle. He doesn’t offer any to Tony, either, which is either extremely considerate, or a deliberate "fuck you" depending on whether or not he's actually noticed Tony's two months sober.

(Two months, one week, three days, actually, but who's counting? Not him.

(Jarvis, maybe.)

“I’m just _so_ interested to know,” Barton says, tipping his head to the side and the bottle to his lips again. “Who sent you? Like, who am I totally not going to be able to look in the face at team meetings? I feel like it must’ve been someone that likes me, ‘cause they sent you instead of Nat.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. Watches the long, scruffy line of the kid’s throat as he swallows greedily and scrubs the back of his hand rough over his bruised mouth. “I can yell, if you’d prefer,” he offers.

Barton chuckles. “No, man, she’d just be _disappointed_. Go all Moscow mule on me—Russians are _stubborn_ ,” he clarifies, when Tony frowns. “She gets real cold. Stops coming around.” He shrugs. “Burns herself out, eventually.”

“Am I to take it that means this isn’t the first time someone’s had to, uh—extract you?”

“Ain’t my first rodeo, nah.” He grins. His bottom teeth are bloody. “Won’t be the last, I’d bet.”

Tony has a _temper_ , is the thing.

It's not—like, he isn't putting his fists through walls and getting into fights every other day. He doesn’t throw things and kick furniture and slam doors in his wake. It’s not like that. It's not even like the way Howard had cuffed him around the back of the head when he was knee-high and a worse pain-in-the-ass than he is now, that easy cruelty borne from a lifetime of slow-burn, simmering anger.

God, no. He learned to reign it in young, his constantly-buzzing brain aware, even at that tender age, that Howard's propensity for bruising lived somewhere in him, too. It may have been somewhere dark and damp and secret Maria didn't even know about, but it was irrevocably, eternally _there_. He could feel it, coiled and rumbling in the pit of his stomach every time Howard spat his name like a four-letter word.

He shakes with it, sometimes, finds himself grinding his teeth and snarling his hands into the tangle of his hair to tug, absent, because it stops the viciousness from leaking out black and thick as motor oil between his teeth. Helps him bite back whatever acid comment is burning a hole in the hollow of his throat and he counts to ten, to ten thousand, repeats _calm down calm calm calm_ until he's numb with it.

This time, though, he doesn’t move. Counts to twenty thousand. Thirty. His heartbeat pounds wet-hot in his ears, furious as a midsummer thunderstorm, and Barton just blinks his stupid baby blues up at Tony, frown creasing his brow.

“What,” Tony says, in what he thinks is a relatively even voice, considering, “ _exactly_ , does that mean, Barton? Because that sounds an awful lot like I can expect a repeat performance of this disaster in the near future. Considering we’ve only just managed to persuade the head of marketing to put you back on the t-shirts, considering you are still, technically, free only at her Majesty’s _fucking_ pleasure, considering that you are still under _mandatory routine psychiatric evaluation_ , I know you’re not telling me that you still plan to head back to an S&M club in _broad goddamn daylight_ to overindulge your infuriatingly suicidal tendencies.”

Barton sneers. It’s an ugly look on him, frayed and uncertain, closer to the snarl of a stray dog than a real human expression. “Oh my _God_ , Stark, cry me a fuckin’ river. This? This is _none_ of your business. None of Hill’s business, or Fury’s, or whoever the hell sent you here. I was fine. I _am_ fine. I am a grown man and this is _none of your business._ ”

Tony’s vision goes an alarming shade of red. Before he can bring himself fully back online, though, before he can come up with any words at all, Barton is tugging his hood low over his greasy hair as the car rolls to a gentle stop at a light. Before Tony manages to say more than “Clint, _Clint,_ hey—“ Barton’s already shoved the door open, slammed it behind him, and slipped seamlessly into the flow of the pedestrians packing the sidewalk.

Tony watches the purple smear of his hood and the miserable arc of his hunched shoulders disappear around the next corner and realizes too late that Barton took the bottle with him. He stares mournfully at the abandoned glass in the cupholder of Barton’s empty seat.

From the front seat, Happy clears his throat and prompts, uncomfortably, "Mr. Stark, should I try to find a parking spot nearby, or...?"

"No," Tony says, and leans forward to pluck the glass from the cupholder. "No, let him go. Back to the Tower, please, Happy." He rolls the glass between his palms slowly, cool counterpoint to the flush of rage still throbbing in his belly. Breathes through his nose. Does not unbuckle his seatbelt. Does not get out of the car and follow Barton's stupid, battered self back to his grimy little apartment just to make sure he makes it there in one piece, because if the guy wants to walk off broken ribs without the aid of medical-grade painkillers, well, he's right. 

It's none of Tony's business.

He could  _really_ use a drink, though.


	2. and one bad night, i'll spill and spill until my feet begin to drown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Natasha really should have known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y’all are such sweeties. thanks so much to everyone that left me feedback. it nourishes me. 
> 
> here, have some more train wreck!clint
> 
> (Kate Bishop is the other Hawkeye, a member of the Young Avengers. Aimee is a tenant of the apartment building Clint owns. Lucky is Clint's one-eyed pizza dog)

He's drunk on the edge of his rooftop when she and Bucky find him. 

Cheap-drunk, circus-drunk like she hasn't seen him in years, his ugly purple Vans knocking an uneven tempo against the brick siding of the building. He kicks his feet like a child, and he's humming to himself, something atonal, frantic and weird so he's either been listening to the Ramones again or he's turned his hearing aids off. 

_Stupid_. He's precariously perched, wavering, a goddamn target on the roof of his own home with his bow nowhere in sight, and he is the most _infuriatingly stupid_ man she's ever met. He's going to die teetering off the edge of a building, which should be entirely unacceptable for someone who's managed to survive a literal alien invasion.

"Clint," she calls. Nothing.

He isn’t smoking, at least, although he definitely smells like marijuana, among other, less savory things. She’s going to have another talk with that green-haired girl on the third floor—Aimee, maybe? She’s fairly sure it’s Aimee. As long as Clint sticks to the mild stuff, Natasha’s willing to let him self-medicate—it’s slightly better than pickling his liver, at least—but that girl looks like she’s got friends in sketchy places, so it’s probably worth letting her know in no uncertain terms exactly _which_ substances are not to find their way into Clint Barton’s eager veins.

(“Whatever he offers you for it,” Natasha will tell her later, arms folded over her chest in a clear imitation of calm, “I’ll pay you double. Just text me.”

Aimee [she’d been right about the name, wrong about the hair color—it’s a brilliant magenta now, pinned back from her face with a clip shaped like a skeleton hand] won’t shrink away from Natasha’s most deadpan stare, to her immense credit.

She’ll ball her little black-nailed fingers into white-knuckled fists, actually, and pull one corner of her pierced lip back in a snarl. “Excuse _you_ , lady, I’m not a fucking junkie. I’m not even a dealer—I just smoke a shit-ton of weed, and he buys my spare stuff! I’ve got anxiety,” she’ll clarify. “And so does he, and we both live in this shithole apartment where no one cares if we hotbox our rooms, so it should be pretty damn clear neither of us can afford therapy. Don’t even get me _started_ on the inherent classism in the mental healthcare field—you know what, no, I _like_ Clint and I don’t _actually_ want to be attending his funeral anytime soon, so first of all, how fucking dare you.”

Natasha will allow herself a tiny, crooked smile, charmed very much in spite of herself. “Good answer. Where’d he get the MDMA, if it wasn’t you?”

“I don’t know. He meets me for lunch by the SVA campus sometimes, though, and like—art kids, you know? It’s not like it’s hard.”

That will not be comforting in the least.)

Clint whines like a child, even, when she hooks a handful of his t-shirt and drags him sprawling backwards onto the cement. Which is _possibly_ not the kindest thing she could have done, considering the state he's in. 

("It's bad," Tony had offered when she'd cornered him in his lab, his face carefully shuttered aside from longing glances at the storage cabinet that used to house a collection of liquor bottles.  “It’s—really bad, Nat. I don't think I made it any better." It's kind of unfair, she thinks privately, because he'd actually tried. He could have ignored the orders, could have sent any number of bodyguards or assistants or lawyers to clean up the mess Clint had gotten himself into, but instead, he'd put down the blowtorch, wrested himself away from his latest project, and gone out to retrieve their wayward teammate all on his own.)

"Naaaaaaaat," Clint grumbles and does some kind of complex, fishlike wriggle in what might have been an attempt to right himself. Doesn't seem to succeed in doing more than jostling his injuries, if the ensuring wince is any indication.

Three paces behind her (as always, _hah_ ) Bucky snorts out a low, disapproving laugh. "Jesus, Barton, how much have you had?"

Clint doesn't respond. Doesn’t even look up at Bucky, who is well out of his line of sight, so that at least answers _that_ question.

Drunk as a skunk and willfully deaf on his own rooftop. He's going to give her a heart attack before she's thirty. She has exactly three grey hairs, and every one of them is his fault. She's going to name them Clinton, Francis, and Barton.

She makes a mental note to share the joke with Clint when she feels less like punching his idiot face in. She thinks it might make him laugh, and that's a rarity, these days.

There's a fresh white bandage taped across the bridge of his nose, so Kate's been by lately, which is good. Clint appears to be at the tail end of a twelve-pack, though, which is less so. She signs down, quickly, one-handed,  'I thought you weren't supposed to drink with your meds.'

'Fuck right off,' he signs back. Punctuates it with a grin that looks like it might hurt, the way it pulls at his split lip.

Bucky heaves an exaggerated sigh and steps into Clint's peripheral vision, waits until he’s sure Clint's eyes are on his mouth before he speaks. "Rude. How am I supposed to know what you're saying about me when you're doing that?"

"Learn sign language, asshole," Clint suggests, slightly too loud, the way he always is with the aids switched off. He blinks. "Also, what the hell happened to your hair?"

Bucky frowns at that, scrubs a hand over the unfamiliar new stubble on the back of his head. "Nat said I looked like I'd crawled out of post-grunge Seattle, with the long hair. I think it was an insult? Anyways, she took me to get it cut. I'm...acclimating to the times. Or something."

"You have a _man-bun_ ," Clint points out with slurring glee. He looks absolutely delighted. ”You're the deadliest weapon in the world and you look like you've just escaped an Urban Outfitters magazine. This is actually better than Cap’s inability to figure out his own goddamn shirt size.”

"Fuck you, it's an undercut," Bucky grumbles.

"You're wearing _pre-distressed Levi's_ , you absolute dick. Are those...those are vintage combat boots, did you go thrift shopping, oh my _God_ —“

"They're _my_ combat boots," Bucky scowls with no real venom. "I'm vintage, remember?"

"That is literally the most hipster thing you could have possibly said, you goddamn—“

"'Are we done here, boys?’" She says and signs, interrupting this train of nothing before they veer any further from how very much she plans to ream Clint out for this once he's descended into the hangover stage of today's increasingly poor decisions. "'Because this is super fun and all, but I'd really like to get Clint to medical before he sobers up enough to fight me on it.'"

Clint rolls his head back and squints up at her. "You're a bitch sometimes, you know."

"Yes," she says sweetly and pulls him to his feet with one small hand fisted in the fabric of his shirt, ignoring the grunt of pain as he protests the movement. "I'm very aware, darling."

 

*

 

Kate is curled up on the couch with an old issue of _Wired_ , Lucky sitting attentive at her feet, his one good eye fixed on the half-slice of Hawaiian pizza clenched in the girl's teeth.

"That," Clint slurs, stabbing what Natasha thinks he intends to be a parental and convened finger in Kate's direction, "had better not be the last of my pizza."

"What kind of monster do you think I am?" If Kate is surprised that her mentor has staggered home slung upright between two of his teammates midway through a Tuesday afternoon, she gives no indication. “There’s three slices left, and I bought you a twelve-pack of Newcastle.”

“No worries,” Bucky says and between him and Natasha, they manage to get Clint slumped boneless onto the other end of the couch. Clint giggles and tilts sideways, pillowing his head on the couch arm. “He definitely found that.”

“Kate. _Katie_. Kate-n-Barrel. Where did you get a fake ID, girlie-girl? You’re a baby superhero now, you can’t just—“

“Oh my God,” Kate interrupts and snaps her magazine closed. Lucky, thrilled by her momentary distraction, snatches the pizza from her lax hand and swallows it down before she can change her mind. “Clint, you are not about to lecture me on underage drinking. It’s, like, two in the afternoon and you can’t even stand up.”

“Yes!” Clint crows. “Exactly. I am being an _example_.”

“Of—?“

“What not to do?” Bucky supplies helpfully. He’s got his head and half of his torso stuck in the refrigerator. “Kate, where’d you say the pizza—oh, never mind. Got it.” He tosses the plastic bag over his shoulder without even bothering to look, the showoff. It sails past the kitchen island to land precisely in the center of Clint’s lap. “Eat that, pal. Sober you up a little.”

“You get painkillers then,” Natasha reassures him, when Clint only eyes the bag suspiciously. “Good ones. Until you’re well enough for me to kick some sense into you.”

“That’s not exactly worked before, though,” Clint observes vaguely, but he opens the bag and liberates two slices, stacking them one on top of the other. Natasha watches, fascinated by the total lack of poise or anything resembling human manners as he tears into the food. She wonders when he last ate.

Kate raises a manicured eyebrow at Natasha, which Natasha pointedly ignores. “Regardless,” she deadpans. “Stark said you refused medical attention.”

“I,” Clint says, swallowing, and gesturing at her with the pizza, emphatic, “did not refuse anything. I left his ass in rush-hour traffic because he was being a complete dick.”

“He rescued you.”

“I didn’t _need_ rescuing.” Clint takes another enormous bite and chews furiously, jaw set stubborn in an expression she recognizes all too well. “I was fine.”

“You were—“ Natasha begins, and bites it off before she can work her way into a full-blown fury because he’s—well, he’s still drunk and he’s hunching his shoulders defensive already and besides, Stark already tried that angle. And that’s her thing, isn’t it, finding a new angle, finding an angle that _works_ , no matter what her feelings on the matter might be.

She’s a professional, goddammit.

She inhales once, deeply, holds it until she sees bright spots behind her closed eyelids and then exhales smooth, slow, even as her lungs scream for oxygen. Repeats it. It very nearly calms her. “The man you were with,” she begins, and Clint’s eyes flick up to hers, curious. “What do you know about him?”

“Bill?” Clint tilts his head, as though he’s trying to find an angle from which this change of course might make sense. “Uh. Not much. We don’t exactly talk. Why?”

“Well, you were seeing him for a while, weren’t you? At least a few months?” Seven months, she knows, she could tell him down to the minute, and she’d _missed_ it for so fucking long. Had seen the tension to him, of course, the tight coil of his muscles and the edge to his voice, the impatient tremor to him when he got too caught up in his own head, like he couldn't stop moving long enough to even catch his breath. She had noticed those few times it got really bad for a few days, a week, and she’d _certainly_ noticed when it abruptly vanished, bled out of him by--something. She’d known there was some outlet, known it was likely a stupid, self-destructive one but she hadn’t—

She hadn’t _known_. She’s supposed to know. That’s also her thing.

Clint shrugs. “I guess.”

“And in that time, how many times did he push a limit of yours? How many times did he do something that actually made you ask him to stop?” When Clint only looks faintly puzzled, she says, “Clint—what was the safeword you gave him the very first time you met? Do you even remember?”

And at that, Clint goes abruptly, completely still. She’s hit the nail on its proverbial head, then.

It doesn’t exactly feel like a victory.


	3. one bad night I'll hear you calling me to help you not pass out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ugh. i'm real sorry about this. i'm sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please see end for more trigger warnings

In retrospect, it's too easy for Clint to just say that he should have known. 

Looking back on it as an adult—or close to, anyways, _whatever_ —it’s clear as the fucking crystal tumbler he's drinking bottom-shelf whiskey out of. And really, what is his life that he can even have that thought?

He should have known. That's not exactly fair to his nine-year-old self, maybe, because that kid knew violence like he knew his own name. Knew to flinch back when voices escalated and hands clenched white-knuckled in the front of his secondhand t-shirts, knew how to fold up real small and tuck into cabinets, the tops of dressers, the narrow margin between his bedroom floor and the bottom of his mattress. 

Knew a lot. Didn't know enough to duck, though, when Dad aimed for the head that startling first time, didn't know enough to realize what had happened as he lay flat on his back with Barn's horrorstruck face looming over him, pale and tear-streaked and (he only realized later, because he couldn't hear a _fucking thing_ for the first time in his life and the silence was overwhelming) screaming, screaming _what did you do_ and _I'm sorry, Clint, I'm so goddamn sorry_.

_Make you sorry_ , Dad had hollered maybe and Clint doesn't remember much of what followed after that.

Which is fine. He should have known but he didn't and even if he had, he'd been a kid.  Useless.  What could he have done, small and scared and flinching at his own shadow?  

("Mr. Barton," his third-grade teacher said, with a flint edge of fraying patience that Clint recognizes all too well, "I don't know that you really understand what I'm saying here. It's manageable when you catch it this early. There are medications, Clint could live a relatively normal life if you'd just allow us to—“

Clint had stared resolutely down at the filthy toes of his sneakers, at the scuffed Sharpie bug Barney had doodled over the right toe. He very carefully did not listen past _no son of mine_ and _he's not sick, he's just stubborn._ He reached up, hesitant, to switch off his hearing aids as Dad spit _hasn't he cost us enough already without you pestering us about therapy?_  

Half the bug's grinning face had been worn away, Cheshire Cat smile cut to an abrupt halt. One corner of Clint's mouth twitched upwards in sympathy.

A moment later his field of vision is filled with his father's mouth, stalactite teeth bared, snarling _come on, you_ as he took crushing hold of Clint's forearm. Clint trailed obedient after, sailboat caught helpless in the wake of a hurricane but his ears blessedly empty of whatever his father was growling at him now. He could feel it though, feel it rumbling furious from Dad's chest and vibrating bone-deep all down his arm. Clint let himself be dragged down the front steps of his school and shoved unceremoniously into the backseat of Barn's rusted-out Pinto. The door slammed behind him, hard enough to rattle his teeth.

'Be quiet,' Barn signed one-handed over his shoulder from the passenger seat, without so much as glancing back at Clint. 'I'll handle him. Be good.’

And Barn did. Clint switched schools the next day, and life went on.

If sometimes Clint stayed awake for days staring dry-eyed at the popcorn ceiling of the bedroom he shared with his brother, if sometimes it took everything in him just to stand upright and dress himself, well. _That_ went on, too.)

He frowns at the New York skyline, jagged like busted teeth in the grimy twilight, and takes another long pull of the gut-rot in his glass. He didn't so much as think of touching the decanters full of liquor scattered about the room.  He isn't civilized enough to identify half of it, much less appreciate it, so there's a plastic bottle of Old Granddad nestled between his hip and the arm of the chair. It was chilled and sweating when he began this little venture on the way to getting as tanked as possible, but it's gone warm now, thick and awful with the tap water he's periodically cutting it with. He isn't actually sure why he's bothering with the glass at this point, but drinking straight out of the bottle feels a little too familiar and besides, he's pretty sure the damn AI has been recording the whole time.

Stark wouldn't like this. He gets scowly and snappish when Clint is weird about accepting things like healthy food and decent liquor and actual furnishings for the empty floor of apartments he'd built for Clint just above Natasha's. Not like it actually matters, right, because it's not like he's moving in anyways, but something about refusing Stark's generosity sets the man off like nothing else.

Clint wouldn't say that he enjoys needling Stark, necessarily.  More like prodding at a loose tooth with his tongue. More of a compulsion than anything, a deep, aching relief in the way Stark rises to the bait and hisses vicious things like _my God, were you literally raised by wolves you fucking psycho, what is the matter with you?_  

Cap doesn't corner like that.  Natasha has no patience for his games.  Bruce is neatly disqualified the moment Clint takes a real look at his file—six years old, already in the system and intimately familiar with the duck-n-hide of foster homes in a way that twists Clint's gut for all the wrong reasons. Thor just looks sad any time Clint pushes at him, mournful as a kicked puppy who can't understand what he's done wrong, so where's the fun in that?

Stark, though.  Stark fights back.

"It's free," Stark had snarls, brandishing his latest gift—a motorcycle jacket, supple black leather and rich eggplant detailing at the shoulders, lined in some kind of thin, flexible material that might be bulletproof—in Clint's general direction. Clint does not own a motorcycle, so it's safe to bet there's a matching bike in the garage for him, because Stark's a pain in the ass, but he's a _thorough_ pain in the ass.

Right—because that's exactly what he needs, isn't it, another mark on the eternal tab he's been running up on Stark's dime. 

He couldn't just leave when SHIELD crumbled, though, couldn’t fade off into civilian life the way so many of the former agents on his team had. He owed the Avengers better than that, ever since Cap had caught him by the elbow as the last Chitauri cruiser sputtered into a halfhearted crash-landing smack-dab in the center of an abandoned construction site. His grip had been loose, his smile tired but warm, and he’d looked Clint dead in the eyes as he’d said,”That was some damn good shooting, Agent."

That had stopped Clint neatly in his tracks before he had a chance to slink off, the flood-rush of adrenaline thrumming out into a low _Phil is dead, Phil is dead and where the fuck were you._  

He wonders even now if Steve was just being friendly. He'd bought Clint's shawarma and the five Bud Lights that had accompanied, with the explanation, "I had a buddy who was a sniper, back in the war.” He paid for Clint’s cab home that night, too, even though Clint was well-used to navigating the subway while buzzed, so all evidence points to _probably_. He’d have done the same for any of them, Clint’s sure.

Privately, shamefully, Clint will never ask him. He'd like to believe Steve saw the bleak grey horror in Clint's eyes, saw the way he was tensed to run until he couldn't anymore, and thought it might be a bad idea to let Clint off on his own.  It's easier... _not_ to, you know, when he's got it in his head that someone left behind might mourn.

Tony, on the other hand, is bristling at him like a wet cat. He drops the jacket onto the end of Clint’s cot, where Clint's propped his dirty Vans, laced tight despite the fact that he hasn’t left the Tower’s medical wing in seventy-two hours. "It's free,”Tony snaps, "It's free, and it _keeps you safe_ , and I cannot figure out why you're fighting me on this, Barton, do you actually _want_ the next call to be your last?" 

Clint had left it (neatly folded, still with Stark's note identifying the jacket as _for Clint_ ) outside the door to Stark's suite last night, immediately after finding it tucked into the bottom of his duffel, like maybe Stark thought if Clint just got it out of the Tower, he might keep it.

(The thing that rankles at Clint isn't the goddamn jacket. He's not _that_ unreasonable, okay, he may not have been raised right, but he's not mean. It's the fact that the jacket had been shoved under the plastic bag containing Clint's rainbow of medications and he knows that Tony Stark, that curious little bastard, would have memorized the label for every one without even trying and he can go _fuck_ himself with the way his eyes track the tremor in Clint's left hand now. The way a man falls apart is no one else's goddamn business but his own.)

"Nothing's free," Clint says, flat, as he proceeds to kick Thor's Jigglypuff off the ledge of the battlefield with a particularly well-timed mash of buttons. Doesn’t even bother looking up at Stark, just casually restarts the match, because he can kind of see the expression on his face out of the corner of his eye, and Stark looked like he'd just been punched in the stomach, hard. It’s possibly just the fact that Clint’s dared to taint his media room with an Xbox.

Thor, blissfully oblivious to the subtleties of human non-conversation—or maybe he’s just really, really into Super Smash Brothers and can't be fucked to pay attention—swears colorfully when Clint immediately repeats the same exact move and wins the match. 

Again.

 

 

*

 

 

What really sets Stark off, Clint thinks, is that he's the one who'd suggested the club in the first place.  

He's got, like, a reputation there, Clint guesses.  Enough that he glares at Clint, as the security ushers him, limping and hunched, through a back door.  They're accompanied by a small, silver-haired woman in a perfectly fitted suit, sleek like a cat, half her face hidden behind enormous sunglasses, and it's a second before his brain manages to puzzle out just who she is.  Owner of the club, Clint realizes dimly, definitely greeted him on his way in that first time all those months ago, and though she squeezes both Clint's hands in hers like she's someone's doddering granny, her voice is slick like steel as she says, "You can understand, Mr. Barton, why we needed to intervene? We were very clear on your first visit, yes, very clear on what kind of operation we're running here.  Mr. Stark, you are, of course, welcome back any time—we do have to ask, though, that you refrain from any further referrals."

Stark clears his throat and tries for a tight, professional smile.  “I can assure you, Emma, when I referred him to you this was not at all what I had in mind. As always, I appreciate your discretion and we’ll make sure he stays out of your hair." He claps a hand to Clint's bruised shoulder, broad fingers biting deep, squeezing tight on overheated, swollen skin, and Clint has to bite back the tiny groan that tries to work its way out. He doesn't think Stark needs a reminder why they're here, not with the way Clint's half-collapsed against his shoulder just to stay upright. The useless lizard-part of his brain sort of shudders at the sharp smell of the man, something predictably woodsy overlaid with motor oil and tobacco, because although Stark's quit drinking, he's apparently incapable of having at least one lethal habit.

Two, Clint amends, as he catches a flash of crimson metal beneath the cuff of Stark's crisp jacket where his watch normally sits. Definitely two.

(The days he wears the Mark VII cuffs, he rarely leaves his lab, never mind the tower. Those days, he stalks past them in the kitchen. He forgoes daylight hours for a steady diet of coffee and the occasional protein bar. He wears the same clothes for a week at a time and sometimes he's so tired he adds to the canvas of welts scored over the back of his left hand with the tip of a soldering iron. 

And yet, here he is. Steady. Sober. _Strange_.)

"Sorry," he grumbles as Stark steers him into a plush leather seat and very pointedly hands him the buckle end of his seatbelt.

"For what," Tony all but snarls, and it's gotta be, gotta be just the molly and the way Tony smells because that right there, the clipped way he bites at the tail end of the 't' has got Clint hard as a fuckin' _rock_ , don't it, which is. That’s. Well. Not great.

Dad was a mechanic. Tony—in spite of the crisp cut of Armani and his very best bland paparazzi smile—is a mechanic. He's not great at math, but that don't take much to figure out.

 

 

*

 

 

Clint hadn't asked Stark or anything—Jesus Christ, no, he would have never mentioned it. Honest. What the hell kind of conversation is that to have with a coworker, especially the one technically signing his paychecks?

Paychecks which, he notes with some guilt, have actually become somehow more comfortable since Nat and Steve broke SHIELD. He tries never to ask anything of Stark, if he can help it.

Except Stark had snagged him as he passed through the communal kitchen one morning, hooked two fingers in the back of his t-shirt and tugged his collar aside just enough to expose brilliant purple striping all round his throat. Grinned like a fox, sharp, white in the salt-and-pepper scraggle of six-day stubble and quipped, "Well hey there, Big Bird, who gave you _that_ pretty necklace?"

Clint's pretty sure all the color had drained from his face. He'd slapped Stark's hand away, sharp, and received a reprimanding _tsk_ in reply, coupled with a strong grip wrapped round his wrist, dragging towards the man's face. Stark's got a drink balanced steady in one hand—ten o' clock on a Tuesday morning but his schedule's so fucked it may well be Friday night to him, for all Clint knows—so he tugs Clint's sleeve down with his teeth. He’s practical about it, matter-of-fact, but Clint shivers at the motion anyways.

The bruising's layered there, ring around his wristbone lapping gentle over the wide staccato welts his bowstring leaves when he fires the bow  _sans_ armguard. Tony presses his thumb into the intersection just barely, possibly accidentally, but it throbs low and slick and hot in the pit of Clint’s belly anyways.

Clint fuckin’ _whimpers_ , it feels so good. Stark is polite enough to ignore him.

“There’s people for that, you know,” is all he says, and then he lets Clint go with a weird little smile.

Two days later, at an ungodly hour of a buzzing-awake night, a matte black card is slipped under his door.

Tony doesn’t knock. Clint waits for his hurried footsteps to disappear up the stairs before he fetches it from the carpet. Squinting by the light of his phone screen he reads, printed in cream script _we cater to all kinds_ with a local number curling below it. He flips the card over, but the reverse side is black and blank, containing only the Braille translation of the same information.

Then the buzzing-awake night turns into a buzzing-awake week, which turns into three, and at the crest of the month, once he’s worried the edges of the card soft and feathering, his vision blurring double with exhaustion, Clint finally cracks and dials.

He saves the number. Burns the card. The following night, he drops to his knees and asks Bill to call him by his first name and says very politely _I’m not looking for sex, I want to be really clear on that, okay, man?_

When Clint’s finally stumbled home after, somewhat poorer but still warm, still loose-limbed and panting, he falls into bed, jacks off ruthlessly, and doesn’t wake up for two days straight.

Kate’s camped out with Lucky at the foot of his bed when he does finally stir. Charmer of a houseguest that she is, he’s barely blinked awake before she’s up in his face, her hair a wild mass of product and, bizarrely, the tang of sea salt, murmuring “Hey, beeteedubs, did you know sometimes you scream in your sleep and it’s _really freakin’ terrifying_?”

He nods jerkily, but says nothing. She hums, pillows her head on his shoulder and drags him back down to the cradle of his blanket. Lucky flops across his bare feet and sighs. “Go back to sleep, dickwad. I’ll make breakfast when you get up.”

True to her word, she does. She makes waffles, cooks up the last of his bacon, squeezes some overripe oranges into a mostly-passable juice and doesn’t ask him a damn thing other than “Hey, so Teddy’s ex is playing in this really shitty battle of the bands and I thought you might wanna come laugh at it with us? The beer’s, like, fifty cents.”

He goes and he drinks and he drinks and he _drinks_ and when he stumbles over his own sneakers trying to order another round of shots from a kid ten years his junior, she steers him firmly onto the right train home. He falls asleep for most of the ride, but Kate Bishop is amazing so somehow, right before his stop, she jolts him awake with a text:

_please be safe, asshole. luv u_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rlly vague mentions of suicide, description of injuries (bruising/ligature marks), parental denial of treatment for mental illness, bipolar disorder, child neglect/abuse, self-medication

**Author's Note:**

> i'm vstheworld on tumblr if u want a lot of dumb stuff on your dash 
> 
> <3 thanks for reading, you sweet thang


End file.
